UK superfast broadband accounts for 20% of consumer market

Overall superfast subscriptions have already surpassed four million in April 2013.

Superfast broadband services that deliver 30 megabits per second or more account for about 20% of the overall consumer market in the UK, according to a new report from Point Topic.

Overall superfast subscriptions have already surpassed four million in April 2013 and are now projected to capture a more residential market following BT’s move to continue its own next generation access as well as firms such as Sky and TalkTalk transferring their marketing into high gear, the report added.

According to the report, UK’s superfast broadband users have been switching on to the benefits of more bandwidth, with several of them able to pay for the subscription.

Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson said that Virgin Media has had the most bandwidth in the market for the longest of the major internet service providers (ISPs).

"They have seen high end services, over 30 megabits a second, go from ten percent of their subscriber base to almost sixty percent in the last two years," Johnson said.

According to the report, regardless of issues with the Broadband Delivery UK project, there has been more superfast coverage that projected in the UK by this stage.

"With Virgin Media, KCom, Digital Region and other smaller players like Hyperoptic there’s more infrastructure competition than ever before but it’s true that there will be significant sections of the country who will not have any chance of superfast for years yet," Johnson added.

In March 2013, industry’s watchdog Ofcom revealed that broadband speeds across the UK almost doubled.